Early diagnosis of infective endocarditis (IE) is based on the yielding of blood cultures and echocardiographic findings. However, they have limitations and sometimes the diagnosis is inconclusive, particularly in patients with prosthetic valves (PVs) and implantable cardiac electronic devices (ICEDs). The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of 18F-FDG PET/CT in pa...

BACKGROUND This study investigated the relationships between background intestinal uptake on 18F-FDG PET and cardio-metabolic risk (CMR) factors. METHODS A total of 326 female patients that underwent 18F-FDG PET to determine the initial stage of breast cancer were enrolled. None of the patients had history of diabetes or hypertension. The background intestinal uptake on PET was visually grade...

BACKGROUND Atherosclerosis is a progressive inflammatory condition that underlies coronary artery disease (CAD)-the leading cause of death in the United States. Thus, the ultimate goal of this research is to advance our understanding of human CAD by improving the characterization of metabolically active vulnerable plaques within the coronary arteries using a novel catheter-based imaging system....

Hellenic Journal of Nuclear Medicine January April 2011 www.nuclmed.gr 2 Figures 2 and 3. 131I-SPET study (Fig. 2) further clarified these foci in both kidneys. 18F-FDG-PET scan (Fig. 3) done on a separate day revealed abnormal foci of 18F-FDG uptake in the lower poles of both kidneys, corresponding to the foci seen on post treatment 131I-SPET. In the 18F-FDG-PET image, the foci can be well vis...

UNLABELLED PET molecular imaging of 15O-labeled water is the gold standard for measuring blood flow in humans. However, this requires an on-site cyclotron to produce the short-lived 15O tracer, which is cost-prohibitive for most clinical PET centers. The purpose of this study was to determine if the early uptake of 18F-FDG could be used to measure regional blood flow in tumors in the absence of...

Primary hepatic neuroendocrine tumors (PHNETs) are extremely rare neoplasms. Herein, we report a case of a 70-year-old man with a hepatic mass. The non-contrast computed tomography (CT) image showed a low-density mass, and dynamic CT images indicated the enhancement of the mass in the arterial phase and early washout in the late phase. F18- fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomogra...

UNLABELLED Strategies to establish the functional benefit of cell therapy in cardiac regeneration and the potential mechanism are needed. AIMS Development of a semi-quantitative method for non invasive assessment of cardiac viability and function in a rat model of myocardial infarction (MI) based on the use of microPET. ANIMALS, METHODS Ten rats were subjected to myocardial imaging 2, 7, 14...

BACKGROUND Noninvasive preclinical imaging methodologies such as small animal positron emission tomography (PET) allow the repeated measurement of the same subject which is generally assumed to reduce the variability of the experimental outcome parameter and to produce more robust results. In this study, the variability of tracer uptake in the rodent brain was assessed within and between subjec...

UNLABELLED For patients with locoregional advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), concurrent chemoradiotherapy is a widely accepted treatment, but the need for subsequent neck dissection remains controversial. We investigated the clinical utility of 18F-FDG PET/CT in this setting. METHODS In this Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved and Health Insurance Portability and Ac...

The presence of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) is significantly associated with poor prognosis of tumors. Currently, magnetic resonance imaging- (MRI-) based TAM imaging methods that use nanoparticles such as superparamagnetic iron oxide and perfluorocarbon nanoemulsions are available for quantitative monitoring of TAM burden in tumors. However, whether MRI-based measurements of TAMs can b...